ZaReason Verix Notebook

Testing:

Beyond choosing between different hardware components, when ordering
the Verix there is also the choice between having Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Ubuntu Netbook
Remix 10.04 LTS, Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, Debian 5, Linux Mint 9, or Fedora 13 being
pre-installed. There is also the choice to have ZaReason not load any operating
system onto the notebook. With our review unit we had Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (x86_64)
installed. ZaReason's Ubuntu installation isn't too custom but doesn't even have
a customized background or other branding, but there are a few packages added
in like having the NVIDIA proprietary driver and other common packages that are
helpful to Linux desktop users (the Phoronix
Test Suite was also pre-installed, which ZaReason uses in testing out their
hardware).

For an idea as to the performance with this customized notebook,
we ran a few benchmarks comparing it to a Lenovo ThinkPad T61. While the hardware
specifications are not close, you can at least get an idea for its level of performance.
The T61 notebook had an Intel Core 2 Duo "Penryn" CPU clocked at 2.50GHz,
4GB of system memory, a 100GB Hitachi HTS72201 SATA HDD, a NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M,
and a 1680 x 1050 panel. Below is a comparison of the two notebook's battery power
consumption when both systems were idling at the GNOME desktop for one minute
followed by running the OpenArena game benchmark. Both notebooks were loaded with
an identical Ubuntu 10.04 LTS (x86_64) stack with the NVIDIA 195.36.15 display
driver.

As you can see, the ZaReason Verix is quite power hungry with
its average power consumption being at 47 Watts, but when just taking into account
its power consumption while running the light OpenArena game it's about 58 Watts.
We have already used the ZaReason Verix for some performance testing in other
articles such as in verifying our
Linux 2.6.35 regression and in spotting
a now-resolved NVIDIA binary driver regression along with our Btrfs file-system
testing from last week. However, again, just to get an idea for the level of performance
of the Verix we have a few more benchmarks enclosed between it and the Lenovo
ThinkPad T61.